Dan P explores the MMP/Astrodome debate

Share this:

Dan P returns today with some theories on hitting in the Astrodome and at Minute Maid Park.

• •• ••• ••

•

During the Tipping Point discussion in an earlier blog – one of the possible tipping points proposed in the Astros’ slow spiral downward was moving from the Astrodome to Enron/Minute Maid Park and how it led to building the team on a bad anti-pitching foundation. This makes an interesting area to analyze, because often thoughts that are accepted out of hand – e.g. MMP is a bad pitching park vs. the Astrodome – are a little more complex when examined more closely.

The Astros left the Astrodome for MMP in 2000. The Astrodome was always considered the Death Valley for offensive baseball – it was a hard place to launch HR’s, even after the fences were moved in. MMP, on the other hand, seemed to invite anyone with pop-up power to poke a cheap HR into the extremely short left field Crawford Boxes. It turned the late Jose Lima into a former Astro in about a year and a half.

The following is a summary of what I chose as easy to understand Astros’ offensive stats for the 5 years prior to the move (1995-1999) through the 5 years following the move (2001-2005). The Astros’ NL rank for that category is shown in parentheses.

Astrodome/MMP Hitting Comparisons

The Astrodome Years

Year

Runs

HR

BA

OBP

OPS

1995

747 (2)

109 (12)

109 (12)

.353 (1)

.752 (4)

1996

753(8)

129(14)

.262(7)

.336(3)

.733(8)

1997

777(5)

133(11)

.259(8)

.344(3)

.747(6)

1998

874(2)

166 (6)

.280(2)

.356(1)

.792(3)

1999

823(3)

168(11)

.267(8)

.355(3)

.775(9)

The MMP Years

Year

Runs

HR

BA

OBP

OPS

2000

938 (2)

249(1)

.278 (2)

.361 (3)

.837(1)

2001

847(2)

208(4)

.271(2)

.347(2)

.798(3)

2002

749(5)

167(5)

.262(6)

.338(4)

.755(6)

2003

805(4)

191(5)

.263(7)

.336(7)

.767(4)

2004

803(5)

187(7)

.267(7)

.342(6)

.778(6)

2005

693(11)

161(9)

.256(13)

.322(12)

.730(11)

The first thing that shouts out from the numbers above is – yes indeed the move to MMP in 2000 yielded a huge year for Astro home runs and runs scored. But other things fall out of a more in depth review.

• In 1995 the 747 runs the Astros scored was 2nd in the NL. In 1998, they had to score 874 runs to be 2nd and in 2000 it took an astronomical 938 runs to be 2nd in the NL. So besides moving to a new stadium – this reflects an upward offensive trend after the player’s strike – assisted by new, smaller ballparks, juiced baseballs and juiced ball players.

• If we isolate the year they moved into MMP, 2000 as an aberration and compare the 5 years before against the 5 years after that landmark year – interesting things pop up. Surprisingly, the Astros scored almost 100 more runs in the years before the move than the years after the move. While they did hit more home runs in total after the move, they also hit less HR’s in 2002 (167) and 2005 (161) than in the Dome in 1999 (168). The BA’s run pretty much the same before and after, their OBP is a little down in the years after and their OPS is up a bit.

Quick Observation – after everyone got used to MMP – the main hitting stats trended back towards the norm and for a very important stat – runs scored – trended down.

Why? Some guesses -

• The pitchers pitched in a way to force the hitters to hit more balls to the spacious center field of MMP.

• The fielders were able to often hold runners at 3rd on balls hit towards LF and this reduced the amount of runs.

• The batters got into bad habits trying to pull the balls into the Crawford Boxes and hit worse overall.

• Even though mandatory steroids testing did not start until 2005 – the jig was beginning to be up and more of the players were toeing the line.

Again, the following is a summary of what I chose as easy to understand Astros’ pitching stats for the 5 years prior to the move (1995-1999) through the 5 years following the move (2001-2005). The Astros’ NL rank for that category is shown in parentheses.

MMP/Astrodome Pitching Comparisons

Pitching in the Astrodome

Year

Hits

HR

Runs

ERA

1995

1357(11)

118(2)

674(11)

4.06(5)

1996

1541(12)

154(6)

792(11)

4.37(10)

1997

1379(5)

134(4)

660(3)

3.66(3)

1998

1435(7)

147(4)

620(2)

3.50(2)

1999

1458(8)

128(1)

675(2)

3.83(3)

Pitching at Minute Maid Park

2000

1596(16)

234(16)

944(16)

5.42(16)

2001

1453(11)

221(15)

769(10)

4.37(10)

2002

1423(9)

151(4)

695(6)

4.00(8)

2003

1350(4)

161(8)

677(3)

3.86(5)

2004

1416(5)

174(9)

698(5)

4.05(6)

2005

1336(1)

155(8)

609(1)

3.51(2)

There is no doubt looking at the numbers that the year 2000 may be the worst pitching year in Astros history and what an unbelievable drop in performance from 1999.

But if we drop the year 2000 that derailed Jose Lima’s career and compare the 5 years before the move to the 5 years after the move – we get a different view.

• The Astros gave up only 27 more runs in the second 5 years, which spread over 800+ games is only a 0.03 / game difference – is basically a wash.

• They actually gave up almost 200 less hits in the 5 years after the move.

• They gave up quite a few HR’s more – but except for the year 2001 – they trended towards reasonable numbers (middle of the NL pack) for the other 4 years.

• Their ERA’s were very similar in 2001-2005 vs. 1995-1999.

• And the best pitching year of any of that decade actually occurred at MMP in 2005. Of course, Pettitte, Clemens, Oswalt, Lidge, Wheeler and Qualls may have had a lot to do with it.

Anyways – my conclusion from looking at this is that after the initial shock of the move to MMP, when the pros adjusted to the change as pros do – the stadium did not stand in the way of good pitchers having good performances.

So – my questions to you are:

• What do you think about the affect of the MMP move on the team?

• We know that it may have psychologically done in Jose Lima. Did it also psychologically screw up hitters like Hidalgo, Ensberg and Lane, who all had initial success at MMP and then perhaps fell into bad habits that drove them all out of the league?

• Did it change the type of player the team drafted, developed, promoted?

• Did it change the type of player that was interested in coming here as a free agent?

• Anything else?

• •• ••• ••

•

Dan Peschong is a project engineer and has been married 30 years to Mary with 4 sons — Thomas, Peter, Adam and Ryan. He was born in Milwaukee , Wisconsin , but moved to Houston in 1965 and has been a die-hard Astro fan ever since.

Share this:

19 Responses

I should find an article that I read on one of the Sabremetric sites last year for you. Basically, what they did was figure out how to build a winning team around your ballpark, and their conclusion was to build against your ballpark’s strengths.

In other words, if you lived in a pitcher-friendly park (like the Astrodome) you needed to load up on power hitters, and get buy with average pitchers.

(Which is a long-winded way of saying you’re right about Lee being a mistake in MMP. Pitching and defense are the right answers here.)

C Tucker – Yes, I’m sure it was Forbes Filed with the batting cage out in CF.

Barry – I like what you are saying – though if the “Boxes” were 10′-15′ farther back we probably would not have won the 18 inning game against the Braves in the playoffs – since neither Berkman’s grandslam, nor Burke’s walk-off would have made it. I don’t have as much problem with the shortness down the line as I do with the shortness to straight away left field. It is just too odd.

I want the “Hill” gone and especially the flag pole out of the playing field. We have been lucky that those things didn’t shear an ACL or cause a concussion. Poles and hills belong with windmills over at the putt-putt course.

Like you said they could fill in with some seats to the right of the “Boxes”.

Otherwise – I really love MMP, the great sight lines and the closeness to the action.

Tonight -

So glad Wallace got off the snide with a dinger (it was called ahead of time by the radio guys).

Nice analysis yourself. Looking back – one of the interesting things about both the Cubs and the Red Sox “curses” is that both clubs had very old stadiums that seemed to favor hitting over pitching. These stadiums were iconic – meaning they could not be torn down and for a long time Wrigley had no lights – so the pitchers had to toil through the heat of the summers in one day game after another.

Part of the curses for both teams could have had more to do with the fact that they really did not design their teams around pitching. It could well be argued that the Red Sox WS winners of the 2000′s were probably the best pitching teams either of these franchises have produced in their long cursed history.

Following that logic – is it any wonder that the Astros went to their WS with one of their best pitching staffs ever? I think not. So great points maTt.

H – You intrigue us with “having hit in both” the Astrodome and the Metrodome. For real? Batting practice? Promotional thing? Are you Kent Hrbek?

There was always all sorts of pseudo science going on about the Dome – the ball would not carry because the floor of the Dome was below ground, the AC kept it too cool to carry, etc.

C Tucker – Wow, I have a couple of memories about Crosley field in Cincy – one being the inclines leading up to the walls that Tal’s Hill emulates. When the Yanks played the Reds in the 1961 World Series – Yogi Berra played the OF (he played a lot of OF that year with Elston Howard behind the plate) and almost killed himself on those hills going down on all 4′s like a mountain goat – or so I’ve read.

And the other memory was the Toy Cannon’s mammoth blast on to the freeway beyond the left field stands.

The other mammoth blast that sticks in my mind (I did not see his upper decker in the Dome) was Jimmy Wynn hitting one over the 457′ sign at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh one Sunday afternoon on the tube. The wall was so deep just a little to the side of center that they stored the batting practice cage out there. But he cleared it. I think the toothpick he was always chewing on gave him other-worldly powers.

Nice analysis. I suspect that you are indeed an engineer as advertised (and not the type that pilots trains hauling enormous fake oranges). The ballpark move most definitely also affected the Astros organizational philosophy on defense, particularly in the outfield. I recall some early quotes circa the building of the new stadium in which Tal Smith talked about needing a speedy outfielder to cover the vast expanses in center and being able to plug in a lumbering slugger in left since there’s little territory to cover. And that’s pretty much what we’ve seen since then with the likes of Daryle Ward, Berkman, and Lee in LF and Willy Taveras and Bourn logging many of the innings in CF (with a dab of Hidalgo, Biggio, and Pence sprinkled in). I see the concept of tailoring a team to a ballpark as a strategy that can occasionally produce wins but not championships, as only half of the regular season or playoff games are played at home. When you put a Carlos Lee in LF (I agree with daveb that he isn’t signed if LF isn’t as it is at Minute Maid), there are adverse consequences on the pitching staff and particularly so on the road, and to mitigate them requires all but a dominant pitching staff. And Lee’s presence in LF further necessitates Bourn’s presence in CF, which creates obvious deficits in offensive production from the CF spot. The Padres are an example of an organization that has gone out of their way to let defense and their ballpark dictate who their outfielders are, and as a result they’ve gotten little to no production from their outfield and now that their pitchers are struggling they are having a terrible time scoring enough runs to win games. To win games and championships, I think you have to largely disregard constructing a team around a single stadium and instead aim to construct a team that can win in any stadium. And the best way to avoid the former scenario is to not erect a ballpark that is extreme in either the offensive or defensive direction or one that has particular elements that are extreme in either direction (as would be true for Minute Maid). I would bet that I am in the minority on this, but I still see this otherwise great ballpark’s screwy dimensions as “Tal’s Curse”. If I were the lucky dog that Drayton sells the team to, my first orders of architectural business would be to raze all but the last two rows of the Crawford boxes, move the LF fence/scoreboard back to there, and erect a fence in front of Tal’s Hill (and Tal’s Flagpole). In so doing, I would hope to remove any temptations my GMs might have to design a team around the park’s dimensions.

My bad Dan P,great job and excellent article. I thought the master (Chip) was relaying some of your thoughts I didn’t realize it was yours entirely. I guess I had a senior moment. (not quite there yet but close).Anyway thanks Dan P.Funny thing about Jim Wynn.His son is a friend of mine and I had to tell him about some of his Dad’s exploits. Remember when he hit that homer I believe at Crosby field and the baseball ended up bouncing on the highway.

Having hit in both, the AstroDome did not carry at all in comparison to the MetroDome in MSP. – Very good point daveb.

And to Steven’s point, even though I loved the fact that I could get a seat to a game at the Dome without ever having to worry about it, MMP is a much better place for the fans!

Now an off-shoot thought from Dan P’s excellent information. Puma goes from MMP, with the Crawford boxes in LF, to the new Yankeee Stadium with the wind tunnel into RF – is he struggling to make the focus change in regard to the long ball?

Meiczyslaw – thanks for the research on Lima’s IP. Certainly, sudden increases in innings – especially for younger pitchers is a harbinger of bad things to come. But…Lima’s first look at Enron was equivalent to my first look at the TPC island green at the Tour 18 golf course. It was in his head and he was not ever able to overcome it. We will never know which did him in.

daveb – Below is a neat (though slightly confusing) web site on ballparks.

By the way, when the Harris County Domed Stadium opened, dimensions were 340-406-340. In later years, the wooden wall put up in front of the seats made it 330-400-340. I can’t remember what the gaps were, but even with the shortened measurements, there were lots of warning track fly balls that would have been out of most parks. The ball just did not carry in the Dome.

There is a theory running around that Lima’s problem wasn’t really an Astrodome/Enron problem — in 1998, his innings pitched jumped from 75 to 233. The next year, he pitched 246 innings, and then fell off a cliff in 2000.

So, the idea is that he was overworked over the course of two years. He’d never remotely pitched that many innings in a year before, and then he did it twice.

As for Ensberg, Mo claims that he totally screwed up his batting approach when he played hurt.

daveb – Very good point about Carlos Lee never being a candidate to be signed at the Dome and points about how good players play well anywhere.

C Tucker – thanks for confusing me with the master – Chip. The Toy Cannon had amazing power for such a small guy. He would have loved the cookie cutter ball parks of today (or is that going against my theory?).

Steven – thank you for your service to all of us. I love going to MMP and walking around the whole facility while watching the game. In the Dome it would take you forever to circle the field and you could not see anything for most of that distance.

H – I sure don’t miss the Astroturf and I’m sure the players don’t either (especially in football season with crazy lines all around). It did make it easier to slap singles through the infield and get gappers to the fence.

On the fence heights – what I remember of the Dome is that they originally had to put it in the seats, but eventually added the much shorter and closer inner fences that made things a bit better.

Chris S – good point on how runs were no longer manufactured (bombs away!).

Darin – Great point on my looking at home and away together for the years. I could be like the professional writers and call you names instead of admitting a fault – but I appreciate your input and I probably should have gone deeper on the stats.

That being said – I went back and re-looked and you are absolutely right for HR’s looking at home only. However, looking at runs only there is an increase – but not near as severe as HR’s.

Between 1995-1999 the Astros scored 75 less runs at home (1960) than they scored from 2001-2005 (2035). That is approximately 0.2 runs per game – which is pretty insignificant. And in 1998 and 1999 they scored more runs at home either of those two years than they scored in any of the years 2001-05.

The pitching had a bigger difference as the staff gave up approx. 0.4 runs more per game in 2001-2005 than in 1995-1999. But if you throw away the year 2001 when the pitchers were still struggling mightily to pitch at MMP – the gap would be less than 0.2 per game.

Again 2005 at MMP was the year they gave up the least amount of runs of any of this 10 year period.

Anyways – while MMP was a better HR platform in the years stated – the difference in runs both for hitting and pitching was not a tsunami shift. I’d like to hear what y’all think was the affect on personnel chosen, pursued, etc. for MMP vs. the Dome. daveB gave us his Carlos Lee thoughts. Any others?

I think when comparing the numbers, you have to account for several factors that contributed to the change in stats.

I think the biggest contributing factor was the way the game was played changed from the time periods listed. HRs became more prominent, manufacturing runs became less of a priority, batting averages seemed to not be as important(as long as the power numbers were there), and strikeouts numbers increased.

Those factors, along with the obvious elephant in the room(steroids) helped the shift in offensive production.

I don’t want to hi-jack the blog, but the reasoning here seems to be way off. Basically Dan is comparing the team’s total work over the course of the season, allowing the stats for their away games, which have absolutely no bearing on MMP or Astrodome environmental factors. Considering this, I’d like to show the following:

1995-1999

* the Astros hit 307 HRs at the Astrodome; an average of 61.4 per year.

* the Astros pitchers gave up 291 HRs at the Astrodome or 58.2 per season.

* That means between 1995-1999 an average of 119.6 HRs were hit at the Astrodome.

2001-2005

~ the Astros hit 482 HRs at MMP; an average of 96.4 per year.

~ the Astros pitching staff gave up 450 HRs; and average of 90 per year.

~ That means between 2001-2005 an average of 186.4 HRs were hit at MMP.

CLEARLY there is a difference here. In fact over a 5 year time period MMP averaged 66.8 HRs more than the Astrodome did.

This is not at all scientific, but it does show that there is a huge difference in the two parks in regards how each played.

(1) Dome had Astro turf vs natural grass at MMP – this means more single in the Dome (usually) but also a greater premium on defense and its importance.

(2) Fence height – while the closeness of the Crawford Boxes negates this to a degree, the lower fence in RF has lead to more HR in that area than I would have expected vs the Dome. First row in RF in the Dome was still a clought, not necessarily so at MMP – but its not like the number jumped dramatically.

I think today, MMP plays faily even over all – but, as you said, its very important to pitch to the park (CF, please!) and the importance of the CF defense is therefor magnified.

I still remember Joe Morgan refering to MMP at 10 run Field that first season. He hated it.

Also think that its REALLY interesting that Puma almost won the HR Derby hitting RH at MMP (Tejeda took it is what I remember).

Dan, great article. Like Tucker I found myself continously thinking I was looking at another great Chip piece only to remind myself it was one of us! Your research is impecable sir, look forward to more from you in the future.

Given Lima’s performance after Houston I am not sure it was MMP that messed him up versus the fact that he just wasn’t that good. Arguments could go on forever on both sides, it will always be a matter of opinion. Would be interesting if anyone had ever found out the late pitcher’s opinion on it. I personally feel that he was just an extreme fly ball pitcher that was going to struggle anywhere except the dome or maybe LA/San Diego.

Overall the affect of MMP has been great. The financial aspect alone, turning this club into a top 10 revenue club, is immeasureable. I grew up in Beaumont and went to the Dome 5-6 times a year. I now travel around being in the military and only make it MMP 1-2 times a year, but I find MMP a much more enjoyable experience. Its a beautiful park, the dome was kind of bad (also had the experience of playing in it once while in high school, that turf was harder then it even looked).

I think its also possible that MMP numbers might be even more skewered towards hitters if the best pitchers of the last 20 years for the Astros hadn’t been pitching in MMP. Between Oswalt, Petitte, Clemens and some of the great closers of recent history they may have kept he numbers down even more. You have to go look at the Dome’s late 80s numbers to find pitchers with anywhere near the same resumes.

Chip, it is an interesting topic. I think your analyzation of the differences were very good. No question Lima was an Astrodome pitcher and not a MMMP guy.Mainly because his best pitch was the changeup. If thats all a pitchers got he’s got to play in a huge park.I think the 3 guys mentioned were not very good for different reasons.I think Hidalgo’s problem was a failure to control his weight.Growing up in Houston I remember a couple of things about the Dome,that I’ll never forget.I thought the power Jim Wynn displayed was remarkable for such a little guy.And Don Wilson’s no hitter in 67 would not have been a no hitter in probably any other park (especially MMP).I remember our left fielder catching several balls right at or up against the wall.

No doubt that adjustments had to be made when the move from the Dome to MM took place. Pitchers had to and for the most part, got the hang of the differences in the parks, especially in keeping the ball to the outside half of the plate, helping to negate the close proximity of the Crawford boxes. And if MM was really such a hitters park, the Stros would not be last in the league in homers today, would they?

There is also a pretty good chance that the Carlos Lee deal would have never taken place if the Dome was still home when he signed the big contract. It was essential that the guy in left could could get around and play some defensive. Cruz did a good job, Billy Hatcher and others. I remember watching Greg Luzinski get eaten alive out there. Safe to say that he didn’t like the Dome. Team speed was essential in the Dome, something overlooked in recent MM rosters.

But outside of it being a tougher place to hit a homer, the Dome did offer offensive benefits. First off, the terrible artifical turf field was hard and slick, with ground balls finding holes in the infield easier and base hits finding gaps for extra bases. And like MM, there was also very little foul territory, taking more balls out of play and extending at bats. It was also a tough place for a hitter to see the ball coming in from the pitcher, an obvious advantage to the home team who got to play half their games in the place.

But overall, it’s pretty simple. Good players play well in any park. And we had more good players during those last few years in the Dome.